Regularly updated blog charting the most important albums of the last 50 years

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

850. Cornershop - When I Was Born For the 7th Time (1997)

Track Listing

1. Sleep On The Left Side2. Brimful Of Asha3. Butter The Soul4. Chocolat5. We're In Your Corner6. Funky Days Are Back Again7. What Is Happening?8. When The Light Appears Boy9. Coming Up10. Good Shit 11. Good To Be On The Road Back Home Again12. It's Indian Tobacco My Friend13. Candyman14. State Troopers15. Norwegian Wood

Review

Cornershop bring an interesting new element to British electronica and pop, inspired by their Indian ancestry they use the drones which are part of the music of the subcontinent as a base for exploring pop, electronica and rock.

Although at times it might sound Beatle-like, which is quite self-conscious as you can see from the cover of Norwegian Wood, it is still original in the way it is coming to Indian music from the opposite direction.

Cornershop get the accessible pop songs out of the way in the first two tracks and then they let themselves explore and experiment with pretty interesting sounds and mix their music with stuff as out of context as country music. So yeah, very enjoyable stuff.

Track Highlights

1. Brimful of Asha2. Sleep on the Left Side3. Good To Be On The Road Back Home Again4. Norwegian Wood

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Featured on the album is the international hit single, "Brimful of Asha." The song "Candyman" was used in a Nike commercial featuring LeBron James. The song "Good Shit" was featured in an commercial for Target with the chorus being altered to read "Good Stuff..."

1. In Pursuit of Happiness2. Everybody Knows (except you)3. Someone4. If...5. If I Were You (i'd be through with me)6. Timewatching7. I'm All You Need

ReviewI have a problem with The Divine Comedy, the problem is that they remind me so much of musicians that I love such as Scott Walker and David Ackles they I like them by association more than because of the music itself.

This short album is another example of this. The David Ackles influence is more to the forefront here, and it is a pretty good album, but it has been done and in a better way before.

So I find the album very enjoyable but really if I want to listen to it I might put something else on. This is actually quite sad because I'd really like to love it. But hey, I just like it.

Track Highlights

1. If I Were You (i'd be through with me)2. In Pursuit of Happiness3. Everybody Knows (except you)4. If...Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The middle eight of "In Pursuit Of Happiness" was subsequently adopted as the theme for the TV series Tomorrow's World . The original version was used for one season of the show, with a specially-recorded version being substituted thereafter.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

848. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call (1997)

Track Listing

1. Into My Arms 2. Lime Tree Arbour3. People Aint No Good4. Brompton Oratory5. There Is A Kingdom6. Are You The One That I'Ve Been Waiting For?7. Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere8. West Counrty Girl9. Black Hair 10. Idiot Prayer11. Far From Me12. Green Eyes

Review

So here's an album in a completely different register to Murder Ballads, the last Nick Cave work we've had here. This is not only a display of Cave's versatility but also a show of just how amazingly good he is in this different register.

Boatman's Call is an album infused with pain and heartbreak, possibly partly inspired by Cave's break up with PJ Harvey. This also make the musical arrangements much lower key than in the previous album, this does not mean that they any less impressive.

Boatman's Call minimalism works just as well as any of Cave's albums full of bombast, this other side of Cave's music making just goes to show how multifaceted his music is and he is as an artist. Beautiful, painful music which everyone needs to listen to.

Track Highlights

1. Are You The One That I've Been Waiting For?2. Brompton Oratory3. Into My Arms4. Black Hair

Final Grade10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album's tone is sombre and minimalist. Stylistically and lyrically it marks a major departure for Cave, away from full-band arrangements and character-based narratives towards the more intimate sound of Cave's solo voice accompanied by piano or a few other instruments. The tempo is also generally slow. Many of the lyrics seem to reflect on Cave's personal relationships and spiritual yearnings. Some songs are thought to be directed at either the mother of Cave's son Luke, Viviane Carneiro ("Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?") or PJ Harvey, with whom he had a brief relationship around that time ("West Country Girl", "Black Hair" and "Green Eyes").

This album brought Cuban music to the forefront of the World Music scene and actually topped the charts in many countries with it's infectious but also supremely composed and played music.

Often on this list, when it comes to "world music", I disagree with the choices of the authors who seem to frequently reveal a lot of ignorance about the music of the countries they are picking. Buena Vista Social Club, in spite of being such a hit album, is not one of those cases. This album deserves all the praise heaped on it.

Each track is an amazing work, there is not a single less great track here, fortunately Ry Cooder does not seem to have tried to make the music more appealing to Anglo audiences by adding extraneous instruments or arrangements, so it sounds authentic and the quality of the production is such that you hear each single instrument clearly while keeping a certain intimate feeling. Amazing.

Track Highlights

1. Chan Chan2. Dos Gardenias3. El Carretero4. Orgullecida

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1996, American guitarist Ry Cooder had been invited to Havana by British world music producer Nick Gold of World Circuit Records to record a session where two African High-life musicians from Mali were to collaborate with Cuban musicians. On Cooder's arrival (via Mexico to avoid the ongoing U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba), it transpired that the musicians from Africa had not received their visas and were unable to travel to Havana. Cooder and Gold changed their plans and decided to record an album of Cuban son music with local musicians. Already on board the African collaboration project were Cuban musicians including bassist Orlando "Cachaito" López, guitarist Eliades Ochoa and musical director Juan de Marcos González, who had himself been organizing a similar project for the Afro-Cuban All Stars. A search for additional musicians led the team to singer Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, pianist Rubén González and octogenarian singer Compay Segundo, who all agreed to record for the project.

The Prodigy are one of the more interesting electronica bands around in 1997, some of their tracks are truly infectious, and this is nowhere truer than in this album, their most famous and peppered with deserving hit singles.

Not all is rosy, however, with Prodigy comes the problem that after a while it all sounds like variations on a theme, a lot of the tracks bare enough similarities among themselves to make the album slightly boring on repeated listenings.

That being said, the album starts incredibly strong for the first three tracks and then dips a bit until Firestarter sparks it back to life (see what I did there?) only to return to two more forgettable tracks.

Track Highlights

1. Breathe2. Smack My Bitch Up3. Diesel Power4. Firestarter

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"Serial Thrilla" features a sample of a riff by Skunk Anansie, "Funky Shit" features a sample from "Root Down" from the Beastie Boys album Ill Communication, "Fuel My Fire" is a cover of an L7 song from Hungry for Stink. "Smack My Bitch Up" takes a sample from an Ultramagnetic MCs song, "Give the Drummer Some", and thus the Prodigy invited Kool Keith to do the lyrics and vocals for another track, "Diesel Power." Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and later Pearl Jam, who is falsely credited as "Mark" in the liner notes, is also understood to have contributed samples to the album, though it is not clear where.

Now this is a pretty great album, with a shared pop and punk sensibility which really makes it edgy and very appealing at the same time. This might sound blasphemous to some people but at times they sound to me like the Go-Gos with a punk element thrown in, and this is no bad thing.

Many of the songs here are instantly appealing and it is the kind of album that will repay repeated listenings after the first, quite pleasant go. Sleater-Kinney walk the tight rope of pop-hooks and punkish attitude perfectly, with some pretty good lyrics and relentless drive.

So this is definitely one album I can recommend, I really appreciate it when artists can be immediately appealing without sacrificing integrity and this is what happens with this album. Great.

Track Highlights

1. Little Babies2. Words and Guitar3. Turn It On4. Dig Me Out

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The cover is an homage to The Kinks' 1965 album The Kink Kontroversy.

Sleater-Kinney Listen to some Pixies before kicking into Dig Me Out at around 2.30:

This is an album to take in small doses. The thing about it is that it is really pretty good but it gets tiring after a while, there are several tracks here which I really like and would sound great in almost any DJ set. Repeated listenings make it a bit boring, however.

The kind of dark sophisticate sound of the album works really well, and the track Don't Die Just Yet, a clear cover of a Serge Gainsbourg song is a more than knowing nod. It tries to approximate some of the ambience that Gainsbourg explored in Histoire de Melody Nelson while transporting it to a New York context.

It is partly successful in what it attempts to do. The voice samples that Holmes recorded in the streets of New York make a great effect in the album's overall mood. These elements make it approach the level of goodness of Barry Adamson's soundtracky albums, it does not quite get there, however.

Track Highlights

1. Don't Die Just Yet2. Radio 73. Gritty Shaker4. Slashers Revenge

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Holmes used the recordings he made in New York of conversations and other street-level noise as samples on the album. These snippets of conversation were often spoken by people from New Yorks cultural underbelly, including prostitutes, pimps and drug-dealers. The samples were used in between the tracks on the album,and in some cases in the tracks themselves.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

1. Heaps Of Sheeps2. Duchess3. Maryan4. Was A Friend5. Free Will And Testament6. September The Ninth7. Alien8. Out Of Season9. Sunday In Madrid10. Blues In Bob Minor11. Whole Point Of No Return

ReviewAt times albums can be so retro that they actually sound quite cutting edge. This is the case with Wyatt's Shleep. I am pretty sure that the reason for this is that it is going back to music that was never mainstream, to a kind of progressive experimentalism that is completely out of place in 1997.

Bringing Eno in to the proceedings helps to make this album pretty great, it starts out with a track which is pretty close to Eno's solo career sound but it then develops into something else. Wyatt has a kind of experimental jazz sound which really does not detract from the more poppy elements of the music.

So yeah I really liked this album, possibly because I miss listening to this kind of music, the last few years having been quite barren in what concerns this type of music. Basically I really liked this album because I miss the 70s, and this would sound pretty great any decade.

Track Highlights

1. Out Of Season2. Blues in Bob Minor3. Heaps of Sheeps4. The Duchess

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Shleep is the eighth album released, in 1997, by Canterbury Scene survivor and progressive rock legend Robert Wyatt.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

1. Burning Wheel2. Get Duffy3. Kowalski4. Star5. If They Move, Kill 'Em6. Out of the Void7. Stuka8. Medication9. Motorhead10. Trainspotting11. Long Life

Review

While Primal Scream's Screamadelica was a deep disappointment to me, Vanishing Point is actually a pleasant surprise. This is strange to the extent of their relative fame as albums, but this is without a doubt my favourite of the two.

This does not mean that there aren't substantial problems here: the lyrics are pretty bad, for example. This is another reason why the album is better, however, there are plenty of tracks which are almost only instrumental or with a very small amount of vocals.

This lets the listener listen to the best thing about Primal Scream, the instrumental inventiveness and this is an album which while being admittedly retro: taking inspiration from a 1971 film, is also pretty fresh sounding if it weren't for the Oasis like vocals and inapt writing which crop up every once in a while.

Track Highlights

1. Kowalski2. Get Duffy3. Burning Wheel4. Trainspotting

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It is named after and inspired by the 1971 film Vanishing Point, especially the song "Kowalski", which is meant to be an alternative soundtrack to the movie. Lead singer Bobby Gillespie said, "The music in the film is hippy music, so we thought, 'Why not record some music that really reflects the mood of the film?' It's always been a favourite of the band, we love the air of paranoia and speed- freak righteousness. It's impossible to get hold of now, which is great! It's a pure underground film, rammed with claustrophobia." Vanishing Point shows inspiration from dub, ambient music, dance, krautrock and other genres, as well as individual bands such as Motörhead, Can, and The Stooges. It was the first album to feature the band's new bass player Gary 'Mani' Mounfield, formerly of The Stone Roses.

Monday, April 20, 2009

841. The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole (1997)

Track Listing

1. Block Rockin' Beats2. Dig Your Own Hole3. Elektrobank4. Piku5. Setting Sun6. It Doesn't Matter7. Don't Stop The Rock8. Get Up On It Like This9. Lost In The K Hole10. Where Do I Begin11. The Private Psychedelic Reel

Review

Now we get to another one of those extremely successful, arena-filling, electronica albums. From the first track you can tell why, this is very attractive music indeed, particularly in a particular setting.

It is this dependence on setting that makes this album not all that amazing to listen to at home, it is something that needs to be experienced where it is meant to be experienced, the club or live event.

The fact that a certain electronica club culture has dwindled in the past decade has unfortunately dated the album, it is very late nineties. While it has a handful of tracks that are enjoyable in their own right, as an album it does not maintain the promise of its first track.

Let's get one thing out of the way: This is a really important album. For two reasons, firstly Missy Elliot is definitely the best female rapper around, she's quirky and interesting, but most importantly Timbaland's production is the template for most R&B/Hip-Hop albums and it is a sound that has come to dominate the charts.

That being said it is not the best album ever, it is fun and all but as a result of having listened to so much similar stuff after it is not really surprising listening to it now. The best thing about it are really Missy's lyrics. She's a weirdo.

So a very important album and one which definitely deserves to be a part of this list, this is, however, in some few cases not equivalent to an album that I would like to listen to everyday from here to doomsday.

It is entirely produced by her associate Timbaland and features the hit singles, "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", "Sock It 2 Me," "Hit Em Wit Da Hee," and "Beep Me 911." Other guest appearances on the album include Busta Rhymes, Ginuwine, Lil' Kim, Aaliyah, Timbaland, and the debut of Nicole Wray.

Friday, April 17, 2009

839. Finley Quaye - Maverick A Strike (1997)

Track Listing

1. Ultra Stimulation2. It's Great When We're Together3. Sunday Shining4. Even After All5. Ride On And Turn The People On6. The Way Of The Explosive7. Your Love Gets Sweeter8. Supreme I Preme9. Sweet And Loving Man10. Red Rolled And Seen11. Falling12. I Need A Lover13. Maverick A StrikeReview

Finley Quaye is now best known for making that song off the O.C. There was a time, however, where one of his albums was big summer music. Unfortunately that is pretty much all that it is. Music which would work well in a beach bar setting.

It is Reggae mixed with some trip-hoppiness and not all that fascinating. It is pretty undemanding music that everyone would kind of feel cold about.l In fact Quaye's delivery is a bit cold itself, bog-standard Reggae singing and lyrics.

Even if there is some originality to the idea of marrying Trip-hop and sunny Reggae it ends up not making for a very interesting result. It is in the end a perfectly listenable album, but not a great one.

He made a solo record deal with Polydor Records, and moved to New York. He began working with Epic/Sony when Polydor let him out of contract, and in late 1997 he reached the UK Top 20 twice with "Sunday Shining", and "Even After All". His reputation was established by Maverick A Strike, an adventurous but accessible album released in September 1997. It went gold less than three weeks later, and led directly to the BRIT Award victory. Maverick A Strike is now multi platinum. Two more albums were released on Epic, Vanguard (2000) and Much More Than Much Love (2004). In 2004 the song "Dice", in collaboration with William Orbit, and featuring Beth Orton was a minor hit, helped in part by its inclusion on Music from the OC: Mix 1. Quaye has been living and working in Berlin since 2005.

It's OK Computer, what the fuck do you think? Perfectly played, written, produced, probably the best album of the 90s.

Track Highlights

1. Paranoid Android2. Karma Police3. No Surprises4. AirbagFinal Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

OK Computer first appeared in a "best of all time" list three months after its release, placing 16 in a chart based on submissions by customers of Virgin Megastores. This chart heavily favoured recent releases, which suggested that OK Computer's popularity was a passing fad. However, OK Computer has since appeared frequently in professional lists of greatest albums. In early 1998, OK Computer topped a Q reader's poll of the greatest albums of all time, and in 2001 Q placed it at number one in a list of the top 50 pop albums of the last 15 years. A number of publications, including NME, Melody Maker, Spin, Alternative Press, Pitchfork Media, and Time placed OK Computer prominently in lists of best albums of the 1990s or of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 162 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Additionally, retrospective reviews from The A.V. Club and Slant Magazine have received the album favourably; likewise, Rolling Stone gave the album five stars in the 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide, with critic Rob Sheffield saying "Radiohead was claiming the high ground abandoned by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, R.E.M., everybody; and fans around the world loved them for trying too hard at a time when nobody else was even bothering."

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

1. Beetlebum2. Song 23. Country Sad Ballad Man4. MOR5. On Your Own6. Theme From Retro7. You're So Great8. Death Of A Party9. Chinese Bombs10. I'm Just A Killer For Your Love11. Look Inside America12. Strange News From Another Star13. Movin' On14. Essex Dogs

Review

Blur move away from Brtipop in what is a really great album. They start it off by putting two tracks clearly made for single greatness, Beetlebum and Song 2, after that they explore all kinds of progressive rock music, with psychedelia looming large through it, but with elements of country and every other thing you can think of in it.

The songs from number 3 onward are not as accessible as the first two, but don't let that put you off, those are the tracks that most reward repeated listenings in order to tease out all their great complexities.

It is at this point that the Blur/Oasis competition stop making any sense, Oasis are finished by now, re-hashing the same formula, and Blur completely reinvent themselves with one of the best albums they ever made. Blur and Damon Albarn particularly would continue with widely successful reinventions up until today. Hats off.

The album's style was resultant of Blur's dropping their previous Britpop mantle in favour of lo-fi and alternative rock recordings, reportedly at Graham Coxon's urging. As a result, Blur was a hit primarily because it proved that Blur could evolve beyond their Britpop roots, in contrast to other formerly Britpop bands such as Oasis, who critically disappointed with their 1997 release Be Here Now . The album's move from Britpop was emphasised by this being the first Blur album not to use Stylorouge cover-art and also not to have lyrics and chords printed in the liner notes, instead having a composite photo of the band in the studio spread out over three panels. The album featured the first song in which Graham Coxon not only wrote the lyrics, but also provided lead vocals, for the song "You're So Great". He would later do the same for Coffee & TV for Blur's next album.

1. Stars Of Track And Field2. Seeing Other People3. Me And The Major4. Like Dylan In The Movies5. Fox In The Snow6. Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying7. If You're Feeling Sinister8. Mayfly9. Boy Done Wrong Again10. Judy And The Dream Of Horses

Review

I had never really gotten what all of those obsessed Belle And Sebastian fans were all about... I get it now. After having two amazing albums by them in a row here I have developed a new appreciation for them.

Each single track here is great, overall it might be infinitesimally inferior to Tigermilk, where they were more experimental. There is a sense here of Belle And Sebastian focusing on their eventual sound.

This sounds therefore like a distillation of Tigermilk, as such it is a more consistent album, it loses something however by not being as innovative as their first outing. However, for all intents in purposes, this is really the first Belle and Sebastian album, as Tigermilk only reached 1000 people on its limited release. As such this was the album which had true impact. And it is pretty damn near perfect, the lyrics, the music, the delivery...

Track Highlights

1. Seeing Other People2. Mayfly3. If You're Feeling Sinister4. Stars of Track and Field

Final Grade

10/10Trivia

From Wikipedia:

If You're Feeling Sinister is often considered to be Belle & Sebastian's career high point. Band leader Stuart Murdoch has stated in interviews that this is probably his best collection of songs, although they are not very well recorded. In 2005, Belle & Sebastian released a live version of the album entitled If You're Feeling Sinister: Live at the Barbican on the iTunes Music Store. Its purpose was to offer fans a better recorded version of If You're Feeling Sinister.

I have very mixed feelings about this album. It starts out great, with a Tie-Fighter sample, geek that I am, to the point of knowing that Tie means Twin Ion Engine, it pulled my heart-strings right there. After this it kicks in to some pretty great guitars, with a fat sound that I really like.

The downside came after this, I just really don't like the singer's voice. It sounds too bratty here, something that brings to mind teen-rock bands which annoy the crap out of me.

Therefore I like the music but dislike the voice, making this an album which in the end I will not want to listen to again that much. The slower the track the more noticeable the voice is, so I quite liked the heavier stuff. But meh.

Track Highlights

1. Lose Control2. Let It Flow3. Goldfinger4. Darkside Lightside

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The name is a reference to year of three events which shaped the band - the births of two members of the band, the year Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was released, and the year the first punk albums were released, though it has been suspected that the Star Wars reference is the most important; the album opens with the sound of a TIE Fighter, and ends with the track "Darkside Lightside", whose title is a Star Wars reference, and which also ends with a choral version of the Star Wars main theme. The band have also covered "Cantina Band", on the "Girl From Mars" b-side.

By 1996 the mainstream was getting tired of gangsta rap and needed an acceptable face of rap, defending principles acceptable to all, with accessible music, songs that sounded like singles, not too much cursing... So there appear the Fugees.

These characteristics of the Fugees are both what make them original and interesting but also what make them a bit tiring. You can't help but feel a kind of commercial compromise going on here. Some tracks feel like what they wanted to do, while others feel like what they needed to do to sell albums.

On this last category most singles fall, although they clearly loved Fu-Gee-La to the point where there are 4 versions of the song in the album, a bit of an overkill. Ready Or Not grates with the Enya sample, Killing Me Softly is annoying, No Woman No Cry is worse than the original. On the good side Lauryn Hill is one of the best female rappers ever and you can really tell, Wyclef brings a good mix of creole elements into the music, but it really could have been much better.

Track Highlights

1. Mista Mista2. Fu-Gee-La3. How Many Mics4. The Mask

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1998, the album was named one of the 100 best rap albums by The Source. In 2003, the album was ranked number 477 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The album was certified 6X Platinum on October 3, 1997. To date, it has sold over 18 million copies worldwide.

Yes, there is no mistake, that is the actual track listing. And the ghost track after all that is not really worth it. So we come to what is doubtlessly an era-defining album. To me this marks the death of Metal as previously known, the success of Marilyn Manson created a whole different musical industry, where metal is mixed with Industrial and Grunge and lives somewhere in the middle.

The old long-haired guitar heroes are dead, Marilyn brings theatre, high production values and a grimness which was absent from the increasingly obsolete and repetitive metal. This is not to say that I really like this album, which I don't, but to recognise how smart the album actually is. Marilyn gets elements from diverse musical styles both in terms of the music itself but also the image. From glam to JRock to krautrock his influences are very diverse and combined in a way that was revolutionary to a western audience.

This album is the product of someone who is perfectly conscious of what will undoubtedly sell. It is a commercial endeavour, in this sense the music is not particularly exciting, half the interest is in the theatricality of it all, the transgressional elements which the rather tame mid-90s were desperate for. Punk was dead, metal was moribund and did not shock anyone anymore, Manson stepped into the vacant place of the Satanic Majesty on earth, after the Stones and the Sex Pistols. That was a really smart move, teenagers lapped it up, as they did in all ages. Musically: Blah.

Track Highlights

1. The Beautiful People2. Man That You Fear3. Tourniquet4. Worm Boy

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

There have been a lot of rumors regarding the name for Track 99. No name has been confirmed, however there are alternative titles such as "Better Massiah", "Empty Sounds Of Hate", "Untitled", "Track 99", or "Dying Years". None of these are confirmed titles. It is rumored that an alternate version of the track exists.